Places to learn

https://www.udemy.com/courses/search?q=Free (some free) http://class2go.stanford.edu/ (Free -- also research any Class2go courses) http://www.codecademy.com/ (Free) http://www.code.org/ (Free I believe but also interetwined with codecademy)

Check out my Mother's blog what a wonderful Idea

My Mother Started her very own blog!

One Hour on Tuesday: January 15, 2013 Today I got started...: Today I stared my first blog.  I named it One Hour on Tuesday because ...

Family History blog

Hey all just started a blog about family history

familyhistorytnt.blogspot.com

Check it out if you want!!!

Hey all I just thought I'd invite you to check out Cougar Tees! It's a business I'm starting for LDS T-shirts! Anyway have a great one

So Much Stuff

Hey there's a lot of stuff in here I haven't wrote about. So I figure I'll go chronologically. All the way to the finish. The last bit was written a bit later so... maybe I got it right chronologically.


We had a simulation of the Last Supper where I learned likely they were leaning sideways around a tri couched table. It's possible that Jesus celebrated the passover early according to one interpretation of the gospels. 


I also performed in a wonderful choir for the Christmas program. It was awesome - so many awesome pieces were sung. I was also in a trio playing Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring (Eliza, and Scott played wonderfully). Also I was in a men's quartet which was awesome (Kaleb, Jeff, Adam and myself).


During our sites visited this week we had interlaced throughout it all a wonderful series of devotionals. We began where Christ did during his Final week in Bethany. We then went into a nice Church there in Bethany. We went seemingly around and to the side of where you would expect to get inside the church. There was an awesome garden at this site. Next was Lazarus' tomb where I gave the devotional on Christ knowing each of our names and comparing Lazarus' coming forth as our resurrection. As you go in the tomb there are several steps leading down to a room and then a slight tunnel to another room which is supposed to be the tomb of Lazarus. 


Next we went to a church which commemorates Palm Sunday. It had paintings on all the walls as opposed to many mediums used in most churches. Following this and going out of the chronology of the whole week was the site commemorating Christ teaching the mysteries of the kingdom to his apostles after his resurrection. It was called Pater Noster and had a small cave wherein it was said the mysteries were given. 


Next was the church named Dominus Flevit (The Lord's Weeping) - inside there was a mosiac of a hen gathering her chickens. I've been there before because it was close to the Jerusalem Center and on top of that free. It has a great view of the Dome of the Rock. We went next to the Orson Hyde park to review Christ's Olivet Discourse. Finally we went to a Crusader Church which remembers the event of the Last Supper. We sang some hymns there and fellow tourists joined into the singing.


And so with the formal guided tour over I went to the Dormition Abbey. It was nice and had some great mosaics I especially like one of Christ alone. Down below is a tomb looking thing with a ornamented top to look like Mary. So this Church commemorates Mary and I guess is thought to be one of the possible burial places for her. Then we just walked around a bit it was fun


Ein Kerem 


This was the next day and a free day - man was this day lived out to it's fullest! We rode a bus to a bird watching location and despite the lack of any birds to release (if they have them you can physically release them). It was fun to see some of the birds and understand more about the compound there right by the Knesset. We then walked to Ein Kerem - of course that's more easily said than done. We never did get lost but we did decide to take a detour through a national forest and halfway through realized that the times weren't going to work out. So we ran up  hoping there was an unmarked exit. There was an exit - basically it led straight to Mt Hertzl where I had been before. I didn't realize that's where we were. Anyway it worked out because we were led straight to the street we needed. We saw a tower we suspected of being the correct church. Sure enough it was! St John the Baptist Church there in that city has a grotto and star just like the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem for Christ. Super awesome church I loved it. At the top of the dome there was a dove which was cool. Next we went to a chocolate shop where the salesmen told us some directions on how to get places and let us in on a secret which we definitely would not have found otherwise. So that was nice. We checked out Mary's Spring Mosque which had a small fountain there but if you go behind the Mosque climb up to a fenced in area and then find and uncover a water well looking structure you can climb down inside to the real Mary's spring. It reminded me of Hezekiah's Tunnel except it was just a small cavern. We had very little light down there but it was fun. We stepped on the stones we could feel There was just the room at the bottom of the long metal ladder and another slightly separated room and a smallish one we couldn't reach because we couldn't reach it without getting out shoes wet. 


After some deliberation some of us bought some pizza and we split up more or less. I was of the group which stayed and we had a bit of a time getting to the hospital and the acclaimed Chagall windows. We went down this dirt road and ended up on the highway and basically went around the hospital and then there was an obvious gateway to the hospital. Turns out the first section we went to was the shopping mall place. But finding the Chagall windows was a cinch once we were in and they were beautiful (12 pieces of art 1 for each tribe of Israel). We found the upper entrance to a convent where we did want to go inside. It's golden domed tops (reminiscent of Russian Orthodox style) were awesome to behold. After a brief misunderstanding as to whether we could actually get inside we were walking unguided through the convent. This series of homes for the residence of the clergy and among them this garden provided a impressive scene. We found the walls of the golden domed church and spent some time there. It was really amazing to be there. As we were heading toward a downward path in the monastery we saw another cathedral where we could go inside - we heard nuns signing - It was truly beautiful to hear. The trip out of the convent was actually pretty hilarious - We found the only bottom exit. It clearly would get us back basically to where we were at the start of this whole Ein Kerem Trip. But it was locked. And any attempt to climb over the wall at that point seemed suicidal. It was clear to the entire group that going back the way we came was not an option because that way literally took us hours.  So we walked around trying to find any alternative. Well we found a still pretty suicidal option of trying to see if we could fit through a small hole in the barbed wire fence and down a pretty good jump down a wall. During our initial movements to put this plan into action a sweet young nun found us. She was really nice and lead us with a key down to the bottom door and let us out. It was super funny and I am eternally grateful to that nun - probably saved us all from some very bad decisions we were about to make. 


Anyway we next went to the Church of the Visitation a site which commemorates Mary's visit to Elizabeth traditionally held to be right there on Mary's Spring. It had a tower which sadly is structurally unsound but we did go inside this chapel like area. and then as we went around and inside the cathedral it was awesome how the painted motifs all around lighted up the room. There is a particularly large picture of Mary as the mother of Christ symbolically place among the stars to show she was the mother of God in the flesh. Some of the paintings there I didn't have a reference for what they were about - I assume they had something catholic in their background. Then after we left that place we began our trek back. A quick taxi to the jelly doughnut place then another taxi back home ended a wonderful day!


------------------------------------------------------------


The time is short left in Jerusalem now so I try to make the best of it. This one last field trip remained. We went first to the Basilica near the Garden of Gethsemane which commemorates the lords suffering there. I saw an Irish symbol on one of the mosiacs in there. And I saw United States Eagle motif inside one of the domes -- the reason being that many nations combined the necessary funds to build this chapel. The whole chapel is kept in a reverant dimness to symbolize the weight placed upon our lord in this place. Outside is a gated garden of olive trees attempting to recreate a Garden of Gethsemane experience. Just outside the complex is a private garden which had more landscaping and a more peaceful atmosphere -- I had walked here many times to sit and contemplate. Now we held one final meeting as a group in that private garden, there were hymns sung and testimonies given. 


A short van ride over to a different part of town lead us to "St. Peter in Gallicantu" the place held to be the place where is the palace of Caiaphas where Jesus was held in prison and Peter denied the Christ 3 times. From the outside looking at the chapel I was confused as to what they were trying to do with the dome. I didn't see that it was stained glass. So inside provided a magnificent stained glass work looking up at the dome. Down a series of steps inside the church you can see an additional room and rooms of the church as well as a couple of caves you can go inside to really get a feel for the prison rooms of this place. There are ruins outside and you'll see a roped off stairwell - those stairs are without a doubt the ones Jesus would have been dragged up after his arrest in Gethsemane. Near the church there is also an excellent scale model of Byzantine Jerusalem - it was very cool to look at.

We then walked into the old city to see our final sites for the day. In a series we saw some churches dealing with Christ last hours. The Church of Flagellation commemorates Christ suffering in that he was mocked and harmed by both Jew and Roman. The style of stain glass moved me. I liked their presentation of this event of the Savior life. The Scriptures show the parrallel of Jews harm and Roman harm to Jesus. Our professors explained to us that the argument over who's fault it is that Jesus was crucified is a moot point. It is easy to see that it was Jesus' choice whether or not to make this sacrifice for sin - But ours is the sin. Each of us has and will sin in this life and it is "our fault" that he was crucified.

Next and very close to that church is the Church of the Condemnation I remember some woodwork statues of Christ placed as if they were reliefs off the wall. And I remember looking up to the peaked cones of the inner spires of that church. Naturally we had testimonies in each of these.

We next went to the place where earlier in Christ's like he healed a lame man by the troubled waters. It was interesting for me to go here because I had done an archaeological history paper on this very site. So obviously I could write a lot about this site. I'll not post my paper here - but I would do my research on this site (which includes St Annes) before I visited it if I were you. I went to this site before I did my paper and afterward and the first was concluded with some very wrong ideas about what the site is all about. I would recommend if you go to see the map on site situated like a billboard and then to believe what you see. These two pools of Bathesda are enormous. You can only see one corner of one of the pools (only because they made a stairway near St Annes) despite the rather large and complicated site you CAN see the miracle Christ performed could have been anywhere along this pool. Like most sites there is both Byzantine and Crusader remains of churches here. If you go down and inside you can see roman expansion and arches of the pool structure. Also back when there was only one pool there 2 awesome events of the old testament happened right on the pools edges (ask me about it if you want to know). Next was St Annes a place known for its acoustics. It is situated right beside the ruins of the Pool of Bethesda. It honors the mother of Mary the mother of Jesus whose name is Anne. That's all I've got to say about that.

Next we went to the Protestant Garden Tomb (Catholics as I explained hold to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher as the correct location) But I would highly recommend going to both sites. Because even if the Protestant site is not 'correct' it certainly retains a clearer picture of the tomb. In their presentation here at the Garden Tomb which I received at the beginning of my tour here in the Holy Land they emphasized worshiping the Person not the places of Jesus. I think that was well spoken. The rest of the class mates and I sang and sang more hymns. It was wonderful.

Winding things up here we had a final free day in the old city which was actually an awesome day. We did many things but they are kindof a blur now looking back. I'm pretty sure there was shopping involved at one point. Then we spent some time at a Children's recreational center just playing tag with some of the kids there which was a fun time. Actually it was an awesome time - especially after being beaten to a pulp by a little kid who was way better than me at ping pong. These kids went all out trying to get me in tag and I was trying to keep it playful and fun between us. They didn't speak English and I don't speak Arabic but that didn't detract at all. Tag is a pretty simply game and does not require words -- Ha! They were sending their fastest kid at me. Or at times everyone was it and tried to get me. I was just trying to get them to laugh so I like jumped over fences and stuff to avoid them. Good times. Some Old City treats were eaten and we headed back to the Center.

That night Brother Huntsman our professor (whose book you see for purchase here and he has more out I think) put on an Christmas Advent Program lighting all the candles because we weren't going to be in the Holy Land for Christmas. I'm not going to lie the program was long when I was told it was going to be short so I wasn't allowed the mental preparation of a long event. But I loved it enough I didn't fall asleep for sure. There were many personal stories shared - scriptures read - musical performances given - and testimonies given. I played the melody of a hymn on my cello for it. It was simply wonderful.

Much packing was done and then we were on a Jet plane flying home. There was a band of us going through all the way together to Portland. In a stroke of irony we did have a connecting flight in Pheonix which was funny. But our band got to the northwest with no problems.

A Great Time - Wonderful Experience - Always in My Heart - I'll Remember the Good Time Forever!

Christian Sites - Then Post Second Temple Stuffs

Christian Jerusalem

We first went to a Franciscan church which had a nativity set up on the left as we first entered. It was a nice place with different colored marbles pillars. Of course like all Catholic or related branches it had the 14 stations of  the cross on the sides (These). Our professor pointed out that the 1st of the 4 advent candles had been lit that previous Sunday (one candle for each Sunday till Christmas). An unconfirmed thing was said that Orson Hyde stayed at the hostel which is a part of this church. I asked a professor what was meant by a symbol I had scene at several of the churches we've been to. Turns out it was the Franciscan Crossed arm symbol - The Franciscans being the appointed Custodians of the Holy Land. So that was cool.

Next was a pretty cool experience actually. Mind you these are all within the Old City walls. All locations I'd walked by many times. This site was in a random door which I know I'd never thought to go inside. Our group went up and inside a small simple one room church. A Syrian women explained the long tradition she and many Syrian Christians have of holding to Aramaic the language which Christ likely spoke during his life. She sang the Lords prayer in Aramaic to us - it was amazing. This church had a downstairs room which was supposed to be the upper room of the last supper.

We went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre A sight I have been to on my own twice before we came here as a group. Though I did understand a bit more about the church from the guided tour. This church is built around where there used to be tombs and where there used to be a Rock thought to be Golgotha. Both are still there but they are substantially covered up by the church itself you see. The tomb where Christ is said to have laid was cut around and exposed so that it was more like a tomb room - then a grand church built around it (within the larger building). So it's hard to picture that there were tombs here etc. but I got a little more of a sense that its actually as likely as a spot for his crucifixion and burial as any other place. I just wish whoever built it had retained more of the actual layout rather than what they did. A different church we also went to preserves the remains of the gate which apparently is the one Christ may have gone through if we accept the Holy Sepulchre as the place of his burial.

Then finally for this day we went to a church to sing some hymns. There was a sweet garden area that was very lovely.

The next day we had the sweet experience of going to the Orson Hyde park and consecrating some oil for the healing of the sick. I learned that not just Orson but many apostles and prophets have been at that very spot. Very interesting stuff. Also I read part of the prayer that Orson had originally prayed there as recorded in a letter back to the Saints who were not yet in Utah.

Then Post Second Temple Stuffs

This happens to be our last full day field trip. Our first stop was Masada where a sect of Jews, the Sicarii - nasty bunch, during the Revolts took up their last stand and in a final battle with the Romans ultimately lost a horrible loss of the Romans breaking through their wall (which was thought impossible). This causes illogically those Jews to commit suicide rather than to become the slaves of those Romans. Apparently there is a movie of this battle and apparently it's a big deal but I sadly had not seen it. This entire city is on a plateau and that is why it was thought to be impenetrable. We went up to it not through the hike but instead took a gondala all the way up. Mine was the first group through and so at the top and around a corner we all pretended to be dead trying to imitate the scene the Romans must have seen coming and and finding all of these Jews dead. We went to Herod's palace at this location and it had some beautiful vistas. though there was really hardly anything left of the palace. I happened to see a byzantine church there and it was a pretty cool site.


Next was a wonderful experience in the dead sea. Listen it has more than salt in that water. In Madaba there is a ancient mosaic depicting happy fish near the Sea of Galilee but then a sad fish swimming away from the Dead Sea - perhaps a better name for the Sea would be the Sea of Death. Anyways I had a time using no effort to stay afloat. Sometimes I would freak out and think I needed to tread water for some reason but I totally didn't need to. You see you float no matter if you want to or not you can situate your body straight up and you will not sink - no movement necessary. It's hard to imagine. I look at the pictures I have of our group there and they're smiling for the picture and all. Truth is though they all are in absolute terror of getting the slightest bit of water in their eyes or mouth or anything else. Because the water literally hurts you if you do get it any of these places. I never would have associated the water in these pictures with pain before this experience. Anyway... if you're ever around the dead sea I would definitely recommend you take a dip. It was interesting for all its lack of enjoyableness. Haha

Next we went to a Nature preserve named En Gedi which was cool. it had lots of small waterfalls - I saw some Ibex and some more rock bunnies. There was this awesome waterfall at the end - super cool. But there on the left are some caves said to be the caves in which one of them Saul was hiding from david and had his skirt cut by him.

Finally we stopped at Qumran - an awesome site because of it's view of one of the caves where some of the scrolls were found. There was a short video at the beginning which mainly raised then shot down but left the argument opened about that John the Baptist might be associated with these Essennes. It's just a theory really and I don't know if it's true at all but to each their own. We saw where they copied tons of scripture and where they ate in total sacred silence. Also there were many mivkots all throughout that area so they could ritually purify themselves. Pretty awesome if you ask me. That was that. Have a good one ~

A String of Jewish Sites

We went to a Synagogue during one of their Friday night services to welcome in the Sabbath. The men and women were separate with a veil dividing them. In the middle was their prayer leader who had a shawl. It was mostly the Congregation singing or speaking portions of their prayer book some of which was directly from the Torah (like the shema). Sometimes all stood and once we turned and faced the other direction - though I can't remember the significance of that at the moment. There was a short sermon given in hebrew about the color red and during it I picked out the words Thanksgiving and America. Anyway that was pretty cool.

On Saturday we observed Sabbath - which of course is an exception for this area. I went out to the Old City and just walked the streets this afternoon. And I talked to my family this night after a fireside given by Elder Larry S. Kacher. Loved it!

The next day we went on a tour first through the Wohl Museum which is in the Jewish Quarter. It shows 3 nice ruins of homes during the 2nd temple period. These excavations are inside the Old City and also present pottery from that time period. Next was the Burnt House which was altogether similar to the Wohl Museum. It presented a movie of the period of destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. It showed that Jerusalem was destroyed and sieged in parts.

Next we went through the Jerusalem Archaeological Park which is a massive archaeological dig on the other side of the western wall on the corner. I saw the mikvahs that travelers would use to ritually purify themselves before going toward the temple as well as steps leading up to two points of entry on the southern side. I had already walked the bottom portion of this flight of stairs during the Hezekiah's tunnel tour. But we were there at the top where a closed three arch gate was visible as well as a visible corner of another gate series. Well there was also some ruins of Byzantine dwellings nearby as well as ruins of an Umayyad Palace. But more interesting to me of course were the unearthed entire plaza sections which were there during the time of Christ. It's certain that Christ - his diciples - and Paul walked on these plaza stones. Amazing - truly.

Afterward we were not picked up I went with a group to shop around. I went on the light rail out a couple stops. Asia Rikard insisted I try a Jelly Filled donut and I am glad I did the man even let us make some of the donuts ourselves.

Next was a Free Day ☺!!! Katherine Redd organized a trip to Tel Aviv which was awesome. We went around Jaffa and saw a tree in an egg suspended in the air. Also in Jaffa I saw a Egyptian gate which I have no idea why it was there! We went to the beach between Jaffa and Tel Aviv and went to our knees in the sea. We threw around a frisbee and Cameron McCord made a really impressive arched sand castle. We were walking through some shops and some people bought souvenirs. Further into Tel Aviv we stopped at a restaurant and I had Chicken Schnitzel which was awesome but I tried the other dishes - their being: Risotto; Spinach Ravioli; & white sauce spaghetti. So delicious! We saw the plaza overlooking the beach in Tel Aviv and were basically picked up there. Man that was Fun!

And just today we had the Kotel Tunnel tour. Were we went to the Western Wall and then proceeded north under the Muslim quarter but along the wall of the Temple mount. We saw a section of Robison's arch also saw a filled in arch which used to lead to a Jewish Synagogue under the Temple mount. There were prayer rolls in these Herodian walls just like at the Temple mount. The Romans of course destroyed the temple and threw off the wall stones on the plaza and road below. The most northern section actually had to be dug out so that the temple mount would be flat therefore the bedrock actually came up to where we were eventually. And we exited at a part of the old city I had passed probably a dozen times! Haha. Anyway it was way fun - Have a good one!